is Google's Advanced data analytics worth it in 2023 well we're about to find out Google's first
data analytics certificate launched back in 2021 and it immediately took off not because it had
Google's name on it well partially but because of the Simplicity and it being affordable and
although the certificate was a hit there were two major drawbacks that a lot of data professionals
called up including myself number one that it was too introductory and number two that it teaches
an R yes teaching in R was actually a big deal in fact a lot of people chose not to take the
certificate because of our no I'm not kidding it seems like Google took notes and two years later
Google has launched the advanced data analytics certificate that addresses everything we asked
for yes it does teach in Python we're going to start with the course overview then I'm going to
talk about who should take the certificate and who should not some of my tips for taking the
certificate what could be better this certificate is by Google available on Coursera and although
this video is sponsored by Coursera like my other previous videos I'm going to share my
honest opinion in this video as well so the way they launched this certificate is that they made
it part one which was the original certificate and this is kind of like a part two there's
a part three as well because they introduced another certificate called business intelligence
certificate along with the advanced certificate I'm not going to talk about the bi certificate in
this video you can watch one of my shorts where I covered it in detail but in this video we will
be talking about the advanced data analytics certificate the Advanced Data certificate is
targeted towards data analyst and data scientist basically they suggest that It prepares you for
senior data analysts Junior data scientists and data science analyst oh I don't even know that was
a role data science analyst huh never heard of it there's so many the tools that are included in the
advanced data analytics certificate are Jupiter notebook python Tableau Google anticipate that
there are 144 000 job openings in advanced data analytics obviously I want to look at the source
where they got this data from and they also claim that the median salary for an advanced data and
analytics is hundred and eighteen thousand again I definitely want to look at to this Source where
they got this data from in this certificate they estimate that it's going to take three to
six months to complete the certificate and you get to learn about regression analysis python
translating data statistics and machine learning okay that sounds cool the prerequisite for this
course is the first data analytics certificate now they won't force you to complete the first
data analytics certificate but the advanced version is recommended for people who have
taken the first data analytics certificate okay so now let's go back to the source where they I
want to understand where they see the job openings and median salary especially in the current market
so let's take a look so they got this number from lightcast us job posting over the last 12
months which is Jan 1st 2022 December 31st 2022. so lightcast is a labor market analytics basically
that's where they got the job opening numbers as well as the salary numbers so let's go to the
certificate so I'm going to click and go to the Coursera page and I have already enrolled in the
certain Advocate as you can see there are about seven courses in the certificate itself it starts
with Foundation of data science gets started with python go beyond the numbers translating data into
insights statistics regression analysis nuts and bolts of machine learning Google advanced data
analytics Capstone unlike the first certificate which was focused more primarily on data analysts
it seems like they introduced a few Concepts that are targeted toward data scientists role
so I think I'm still trying to figure out if this is targeted toward data scientist or if this is
targeted toward data analysts focusing on Advanced analytics I guess like it all goes into how the
data science job family needs a little bit of work because it's not defined there is there is such a
Gray Line anyways this seven courses make about 177 hours of learning with stats being 33 hours
and I'm really happy that they spend a lot of time on statistics and regression as well 28 hours on
regression and 28 hours on machine learning which is super awesome okay so as promised
let's actually go inside the course I wanted to go through the python course that gets started
with python because as I mentioned earlier R was actually a big deal that the last certificate was
taught in R so this one is teaching in Python so let's take a look and see like what exactly
are they covering okay so let's look at the syllabus so in the syllabus they basically
start with the hello python it seems like it's pretty basic pretty introductory somebody who
doesn't have experience um it goes into functions and conditional statements that's the second week
third week is Loop and strings fourth week is data structures in Python so the last week is
basically the project that you have to do in order to complete the course okay so basically this is
what the course looks like in Python so let's start with the week four it basically starts
with the video then it goes into data structure in Python this is the reading material then there is
a lab okay I definitely want to take a look at the lab and see what it is so the lab is basically the
integration with the jupyter notebooks inside Coursera so you can be basically get to run
the Jupiter notebooks within Coursera which is pretty cool I like this I like the integration
it's really cool going back to the course again so then again it's like some videos and then it
goes into lab so basically it teaches you some video material gives you some reading and then
it takes you to the lab okay I really really like this because you get to have Hands-On practice
so one thing I'm noticing is that given that this is integrated with Jupiter notebooks and not like
those other tools like coding practicing tools that basically give you a solution and if you get
stuck in this case I believe that you actually have to figure out and fix it yourself because
in a Jupiter notebook I don't see any option where you are like okay I give up now give me a solution
I don't think that's going to be an option so that's something you have to figure out on your
own or use the discussion forums to figure it out and honestly I think like this is the right way to
do it because once you get stuck on a problem you're actually going to end up learning more
than you would learn if you were given automated solution it might be frustrating but it's actually
the right way to learn how to code and linking the third F gate in the description below feel free to
check it out so in terms of who should take the certificate and who should not let's talk about
who should not take the certificate if you are just starting out in data analytics and you have
zero understanding basically you're coming from a very different domain and you don't have the basic
foundation and I would not suggest you to start with this certificate as the first introduction
to data analytics because if this does go a little bit Advanced so I would suggest you to either take
the first data analytics certificate or take another option watch some YouTube videos and
other resources a lot of material available out there to get like the basics of data analytics
and then come to this one and who should take the certificate basically it's the opposite of that if
you already are familiar with the data analytics space and you want to advance your skills you want
to Now understand statistics you want to Now understand coding in Python and want to get
a flavor of machine learning this course does go into machine learning but it doesn't go into a lot
of detail and this will give you a flavor of what machine learning is like and what statistics you
need to know so if you want to advance your skills in the data analytics domain definitely consider
they also tagged data scientists role I would say like this introduces you to data science but it
doesn't go deep I believe that you need to have a little bit more in-depth understanding of machine
learning and statistics for a data scientist role if you're like very new like then consider it but
if your goal is to become a data scientist then I would consider other options besides this because
this is targeted toward Advanced analytics and that's what the course is basically named some
other people who should not take the certificate is if you don't like the video based style I know
some people prefer reading the courses material there's a lot of videos in the course if you don't
like the video style then consider other options okay so my three tips for taking the certificate
the number one tip that I would share here is that when you're taking this course it's possible that
you're going with the flow and you take watch one video watch the second video and when you're
watching those videos It's Gonna seem like that you're learning but when you go into the real
world and start playing the same kills that were talked about in the video You're Gonna struggle
so this is something that is called tutorial trap I did not come up with this this was some I read
it somewhere on Twitter basically the idea is that you keep watching tutorial after tutorial
after tutorial tutorial that's a tongue twister it makes you think that you actually got it but
when you actually go and saw try to solve the problem on your own you run into so many issues
that weren't even discussed in the video then now you're like okay I don't even know like I
watched the tutorial it seemed like I got it but I actually didn't so the way to avoid tutorial trap
is like take pauses slow down and get hands-on experience after each concept and the best way
to do that is build projects when you take the certificate this course will introduce you to
projects so I would suggest to do this project in the certificate but also do additional projects
outside of the certificate you will get a very good idea what uh Advanced data analytics project
looks like after finishing this certificate you can Define your own data analytics project and get
more hands-on experience so the knowledge that is with you is and it's still a device and the
second advice I would say here is like don't brush it take pauses very unique consult other resources
let's say if you don't understand and there is a concept of causal inference in the certificate
and you don't understand because there is only a 15 minutes of video that is talking about it I
would suggest to go consult other resources read a Blog watch some videos watch some additional
consult additional resources to solidify the knowledge on the subject before moving on because
the certificate is introducing you to a lot of things at once it's not able to go deep so it's
your responsibility to take pauses and understand the concepts fully before moving on okay so those
are my tips for taking the certificate in terms of what could be better in the certificate yes I have
a few things that I wish the certificate would do better so this certificate is touching on three
major areas one python second statistics third is machine learning all these three concepts are very
very important for advanced data analytics and entry-level data scientist role given that it's
targeting all three subjects in one certificate it is touching on a lot of subjects at a higher
level and because it's covering so many Topic in one certificate it's not able to go deep I
truly believe that in order to really build your foundational knowledge you have to go deeper into
specific topics and this certificate if you're not familiar with this subjects this certificate
will introduce you to those ideas but you will have to consult other resources you'll have to
take more in-depth courses in order to build your knowledge on specific topics for example
one of the topics that is super popular in machine learning is k-means clustering the
certificate touches on this topic but it doesn't go into as detailed as I would like it to go so I
believe that you will learn what k-means is in the certificate but you'll eventually have to do some
additional courses to build in-depth knowledge on k-means clustering and other subjects one
of the other subjects that is very important in advanced analytics is experimentation and
causal inference the certificate does go into experimentation and causal inference but in
order to truly become a subject matter expert you will have to take additional resources that
are specifically targeted toward going deeper into causal inference the other drawback that I can see
potentially is that now there are two different certificates teaching data analytics by Google
and both combined is about 364 hours of coursework material so I do wonder if there is a possibility
of combining these two certificate into one so it can save time for anybody who is taking the
certificate and by condensing some of the material because if you were to take both of these courses
364 hours is a lot of learning material so I do wonder if that can be condensed to a shorter time
period and into one certificate possibly so these are some of the things that I wish the certificate
could improve but overall I believe it does a really really good job introducing you to majority
of the advanced analytics Concepts that are important for our senior data analyst and maybe
entry-level data scientists as well all right with that thank you so much for watching this is all
I wanted to say let me know in comments have you taken the certificate or are you planning to take
it and what are your thoughts on the certificate specifically the advanced version all right with
that thank you so much for watching I will see you in the next video have a good one bye